Darkjedi21, Jamestown is on Central Time. Knightmare, best wishes to your dad. From Owensboro to Jamestown is about 3 1/2 hours. That's how long it took me. It's not a bad drive at all. Hardly any traffic.

All week I'm going to post prizes that are going to be up for grabs at the Tennessee Regional, to build hype for this Saturday, which is TN's very first regional. My hope is that by doing this, I can convince some of the people that are on the fence about making the drive, to come out and play.

Now onto the prizes...

The first one I'm announcing, I'm sure a lot of the gamers already have him, but he is a collectors piece, he's sith, and he's worth a lot of money, for a mini.

It was an awesome event. Several highlights include: Cool little "hole in the wall store (although it was impossible to find). Friendly competition (the ATL folks will be back next year for sure). Watching the "Backyard Wrestling" video which starred one of of the TN-SWM players during the break...lol...

@ultrastar: hey I still owe you the 15$. Send me your address and I will get it to you. Email (ndjarnag@gmail.com) or bloomail(njarnagin) or post it here. Thanks for having us and thanks for running the event. It was a blast!

Just got back in from the trip. I made fifth (pushed out of the top 4 based solely on SoS from Ricky AGAIN, that's twice in a row now). The day was fun and the TN guys were very cool, hope to see them again next year.

My day overall for minis was alright, going 3-2 with my 2 losses being a combination of quite small positioning mistakes and then the luck absolutely killing me (Mara Jade getting all 4 shots with Cunning on Lord Vader needing 5s, hit NONE of them. Ugh.). I'll have a full report made sometime soon.

_________________"An elegant, easy-to-understand concept or mechanic that accomplishes 95% of what you want is much better than a clunky, obtuse mechanic that gets you 100%" - Rob Daviau

Thanks to all the Atlanta guys who came to the TN Regional, it was good to see the Atl. crew. We had 14 people at our regional. We played 5 rounds, and had a playoff between the top 4 players.

As promised we had a lot of prizes to give away to players. I did some researching on the gamers boards and found people suggesting novels, comics, toys things like that for prizes so I loaded up. We handed out a prize each round to the gamer who won and finished their match first. Also handed out some fun prizes like for the Best Squad Name, which went to Wookiee Sandwich (Congrats Nathan). We handed out prizes for cheap wins like for example a gamer won a match by disintegrating his opponent's Yoda piece, and so he won a Gungan Award. I believe Greg also won a Gungan award but I will let him explain why.

I was worried heading into the event. It was my first time hosting a Regional. I feel like everything went well and everyone had fun. I sent the Atl. team back with a couple large pizzas, and probably a lot of laughs about the backyard wrestling tapes. Maybe next year I will have DVD's available haha.

Our 5th and final regional trip of the season started by leaving Daniel's place at 7 am with an Astrovan filled to capacity. The first challenge of the day was finding the game store. The GPS took us to a dead end in some dude's front yard with no one around to ask for directions except for a horse - and he didn't speak good English, so he was no help. But we finally made it, got registered, and mayhem ensued.

Round 1 I was paired against another Atlanta guy, Nick Stearns. He was running an OR squad with Nomi Sunrider and Boba Fett Enforcer. After a devastating missiles attack in round 2 (Lobot, Dodonna, and 2 mouse droids died, Anakin took 30, and Gha passed his save), things weren't looking too good for me. Luckily, Nick killed my incredibly handsome MTB so I didn't have to start killing significant pieces. After a rocky start, this one ended in my favor. 3 points so far.

Round 2 I was against Justin Cook. Fortunately for me, they hadn't shown us the backyard wrestling tape yet - otherwise I might have been freaked out. He was playing a Rebel squad with Luke Commando, Han Smuggler, and a bunch of things that let Han shoot again. My only way to win this one was clear - kill han. I was able to do so at the beginning of round 3, then got lucky on Justin's roles (he's now feeding his extra attacks to Luke) so Mara survived the round. I won init and killed Luke. At that point, there just wasn't much else Justin could do. 6 points going into the lunch break.

We went to Subway and it was awesome. Then we went back to the game store and watched backyard wrestling videos made by the TN crew. Justin kept wailing on this enormous dude (yeah, good thing I didn't see this before I played him). When the DVD comes out, I'm buying it. That stuff was crazy.

Round 3 I was against Graham. I lost map and was able to pick the inside of Commander's Office, which made a game of it. I took my strafes like a man and set myself up to decimate his squad on a won init. I lost that init, Mara was strafed down to 10 hp, but then she killed the lancer. On we battled, and Graham narrowly bested me in this one. I did, however, win the fart prize this round. That's right, I won the fart prize - a Jar Jar action figure. I'm not sure on whom that reflects more poorly, me or Jar Jar.

Round 4 was against Nathan's wookie swarm. I freakin' hate this squad. My mouse droid wall passed an incredibly high number of grenade saves which allowed my real pieces to live long enough to do their thing. This was an intense match, but I came out on top. 9 points so far.

Round 5 was against Ricky and Vader's Ghost Army. Ricky continues to amaze me with the squads he builds. This one allowed him to bring in 50 points of reinforcements. He rolled like a fiend on Mara with LV killing her with an attack to spare thanks to a crit. Then he wins init and comes after Han. This time he's not so lucky. He isn't able to kill Han, so now he's stuck. I still need every attack I've got to hit to kill Vader, including double attacks from Ganner and Anakin. Everything hits, and down he goes. 12 points going into finals.

Finals round 1 was against Matt Spry and Skybuck. He killed Dodonna round one, Han round 2, and I was about ready to give up. Then I won init and killed Skywalker with Mara. After Mara died, everything else failed its unleash the force save leaving only dash - I'm back in this thing! We nickle and dime each other down to the last initiative roll of the game.. At this point it's my Lobot and Ganner (30 hp) against 40 hp dash. I won init and went to kill dash with Ganner needing 6s because I had foolishly moved Lobot to within 6 of Ganner making him lose loner. Hit, miss, miss and Spry moves on. This is for the best because Matt played a much better game than I did. He deserved to play in the championship game - I did not.

Final game was Graham vs. Matt. It was the best game I've watched in a long time. Matt MANHANDLED Graham for the first 30 minutes, but one thing I've learned about Graham is that you can never count him out. The last 30 minutes were almost equally one sided, only in Graham's favor. Graham managed to pull this one out making him the champ yet again (take that, Tim).

Thanks Bronson for running a great event. I really enjoyed myself and I hope we can do it again next year. I also hope the TN crew can make it to Gencon. I'd love to go out and get trashed with those guys.

All right, time for one last regional report. The Atlanta crew tooled up big-time for the Tennessee regional, with seven people driving up with me in a Chevy Astrovan and Nathan driving up the night before. The trip went great until we got to Jamestown and realized the following:

1. Our GPS told us to drive into a dirt wall.

2. None of us had any signal for our phones.

3. All we knew was to look for a road called something like white oak – except there was a White Oak Road, White Oak Lane, Whiteoak Lane, etc.

4. We had driven past the same horse like six times and it was starting to get angry at us.

So we decided to switch to Plan B, which consisted of driving into town and getting Ricky to ask people if they knew where the gaming store was. That wasn’t going so great either when Nathan drove up out of nowhere and told us he had found the place. So if you’re ever totally lost and have no idea what to do, Nathan is better at finding places than computers and satellites.

Turnout was a bit lighter than expected (I guess all the Owensboro guys had something come up, or didn’t run into Nathan and therefore never found the place), but we still had six Jamestown players along with the eight of us. I felt a little bad about crowding them out of their own store, but they were all very cool and jovial about it. As a result of the demographics, I ended up playing every single game against other Atlanta guys, which probably wasn’t a bad thing since I was playing a super-competitive squad that has some very one-sided matchups that aren’t very much fun to play.

This is a small but significant variant of the Nute’s Moot squad I used in Atlanta. Nine mouse droids in the base squad was pretty ridiculous and not especially useful, plus if I ever had to play against lancer I didn’t have the option of using Nute to bring in Poggle and drones. So the obvious solution was to put Poggle and drones in the base squad! For the price of losing an R7 droid and one net activation I gained an additional source of damage, some sweet tech to go with the MTB, a decent lancer counter, and some non-unique followers to benefit from Sidious’s commander effect.

Game 1 was against Ricky’s Magnificent 6 squad with Lord Vader, Thrawn, Ozzel, Lobot, Mas, and crappy old Jabba. He had some kind of flowsheet to help him figure out what the best reinforcements were for each matchup; in this game he brought in Gha Nachkt and a ton of mouse droids. Unfortunately for him he didn’t have enough mouse droid pieces to hit his maximum activation number, so I brought in the MTB and still out-activated him. Practically nothing in his squad is worth points, and he put the stuff that was inside the jail cells on Spynet, so my lancer strafes didn’t really accomplish much. Eventually he had to bring out Lord Vader to, you know, play minis, and when he did the 86 droids shot him to death (Vader, not Ricky). It ended up being a timed win because I couldn’t get to Jabba’s 50 points before the hour ended. This game was also remarkable for my making 8/8 Avoid Defeat saves with the drones. Take one for the team, guys.

Game 2 was against Nick playing an Old Republic squad with fun pieces (juggernaut war droids, Zuckuss, Nomi Sunrider, and Boba Fett Enforcer). He successfully stuck the lancer once, but aside of that it was pretty much a game of me rolling dice and watching stuff die. Sorry, Nick.

Game 3 was against Greg playing Solo Charge; he brought in a gamorrean bodyguard and a felucian and, fortunately for him, lost map roll so he could get the inside of Ravaged Base. First turn was just positioning; second turn he built his squad into a phalanx just outside the corridor intersection at the middle of the map and used Ganner to toss an ugnaught to blow up the main door. I strafed his squad twice, killing the felucian and the BG but otherwise only putting 20 on Han and 40 on Ganner (Mara Jade and Anakin made their block saves or used the BG). Next turn all I could do was run the lancer away before he tossed Anakin towards the room where most of my dudes were and used Unleash to hit a bunch of mice, drones, Lobot, San Hill, and an IG-86 that unfortunately failed its save and died. The other Iggy small shot and killed Anakin, then got the pawn from Sidious to blow Ganner away.

We both positioned for the next initiative, with Greg moving Mara Jade down the corridor to threaten my remaining attackers and me responding by surrounding the remaining 86 with friends so Mara couldn’t base him. I won the init and used it to strafe and then attack MJ with the lancer. Han was too far away to disrupt it, so Mara ate the four attacks and took 60 damage. On his turn Greg used Mara to kill the lancer, but couldn’t get her far enough away to hide or find a line of sight to the IG-86 with Han, so Mara fell victim to it a turn later. Then it was mostly-healthy Han against the world; Greg hid in the turbolift and I responded by basing him with every piece I had. Poggle the Lesser ended up striking the killing blow. Full win.

Game 4 was another close one against Matt’s Skybuck squad, yet again on his map (Smugglers Base). Trying something different, I brought in the MTB and set up hyper-conservatively on the ship side, with the mice and weak commanders packed into the upper corner. First round he staged pretty much his entire squad in the middle of the board in a little alcove that let him protect Doombot and Dash from strafes. Realizing that he could still pretty easily get to all my mice and whatnot if he wanted, I flew the lancer to the middle, strafed Yobuck and Panaka, and then attacked Panaka afterwards. Upon winning init with the MTB, I did it again. Net result was 20 damage on Yobuck, dead Panaka, and dead lancer. It didn’t seem like a particularly good strategy at the time.

Matt used the tow-and-strafe to kill a few chumps and put the big momentum 60 on an Iggy small, killing it. Well, at least he couldn’t swap out! I killed Doombot and shot Yobuck for 60 on the pawn with the other 86, then surrounded Yobuck with four drones after Matt was out of pieces. Next init I blew one of them up with the MTB, but made one of the Avoid Defeat saves on the others to leave Yobuck with 20 health. Heck with it, Sidious lightning’ed him to death. Matt advanced General Skywalker and Dash onto my side of the board, only to get Skywalker shot at by the 86 and surrounded by more drones. Next round was more of the same – MTB killed drones, drones wounded Anakin, Sidious throw the bolts for the finish. Finishing off Dash was easy enough, although by the end I was out of mouse droids and drones and would have had to MTB something expensive. Full win.

Technically we should have gone to the playoffs, but everyone demanded MOAR MINIS, so we played a fifth round. I got matched up against David playing Cad, Arica, and Pellaeon. He took the inside of Ravaged Base and advanced carefully into the cubbyholes, but was unable to get Arica into a decent position for a big blaster barrage, which was really his only chance of winning the game. Instead he settled for a small blaster barrage and lost Arica in the process. It’s just not a good matchup for his squad. Full win.

The playoffs were an all-Atlanta affair, so we got right down to it. First round was a rematch against Ricky, who tried a different approach and brought in an ugnaught boss and like nine ugnaught demolitionists, along with some swap fodder. We were on his map again, and he positioned his ugnaught army so that there was no way I could run the lancer through the indoor hallways and get to Vader without losing it first. I took a leaf from his own book, however, and sent a pawned drone careening into his ugnaught formation. After thankfully failing the Avoid Defeat save, there was a whole chain of explosive blasts. Vader noticed the commotion and peered down the corridor, seeing only smoking red rags everywhere and the barely-recognizable remains of his old, uh, executed underling Ozzel. With the ugnaughts, Ozzel, and most of his swap fodder gone, Ricky had to rush Vader across the map like a mad dog and the Iggy smalls shot him down before he could kill anything important. Upset at missing all the action, the lancer ignored orders and kamikazied through the hallway to kill the last of the ugnaughts, dying in the process. I never would have guessed this squad could win a game where the lancer killed literally four figures, none worth more than 4 points.

And Matt won a true nail-biter against Greg that came down to a Dash Rendar-Ganner standoff, so we were at it again, this time on my map. In hindsight the MTB approach had actually gone really well, but I brought in a human bodyguard and mice instead anyway. The first round was positioning, with Matt racing up to apply pressure and me moving my guys towards the big outside-accessible room. Second round was a dang bloodbath, as well as a primer on How Not To Play Minis. I won init and moved the human bodyguard to protect the lancer, which worked great until Matt towed Yobuck up and killed an IG-86 droid. Knowing I was about to lose the other one, I shot Yobuck for 60 damage, then promptly had my prediction come true when he swapped Skywalker in to did exactly that (taking 30 damage from the opp attack, at least). Hmmm. Both Iggy smalls dead by round 2. Bizarro Graham am brilliant at lose vital pieces with no compensation! Going into sausage-making mode, I based Anakin with a drone, then gave him an opp attack against another. Because Sidious was also adjacent to said drones (Bizarre Graham position pieces very not well!), he took the bait and made the attack, and both drones thankfully failed their saves so that gore-splattered Sidious could finish Anakin off with lightning. The lancer killed some scrubs, I pathetically failed to finish off Doombot even though he was hanging out in the open, and on to the next round!

Now at this point all my override (AKA Lobot) was dead, so Matt ran his main pieces into the turbolift and locked the door, figuring that was game right there. Daniel basically called shenanigans – you have to make an honest attempt to defeat your opponent. There were still 45 minutes left in the game and the old get a lead and lockout strategy no longer works. I sent the lancer way off to deal with Mas Amedda in the corner and put drones outside the turbolift door for a big happy welcome (complete with fireworks!). Matt opened the door and attacked the drones, but only one of them went off. At least that got Doombot out of the way. I guess he was tired of the drone nonsense, because he sent Yobuck out to double-tap Poggle. Now Yobuck started with 80 damage, then took another 10 on a lucky opp attack from a drone. Whorm shot him for 10 more, then the human bodyguard, having utterly failed to do anything useful the entire game, rolled the big crit, earned another attack via Sidious’ CE (The first time I had ever used it!) and hit again. Go bodyguard, go! Those keeping score will note that all that brought Yobuck down to 30, which meant it was time for Sidious to Rod Roddy and throw the bolts.

By now the lancer had killed Mas Amedda and scooted around to strafe Dash and Panaka a bunch, killing Panaka and weakening Dash so that Sidious could come up yet again and shock him to death for the win. I was honestly surprised that I managed to pull it out after such an abysmal start. All credit to the drones! Without them there is no way I could have finished off General Skywalker without having to use the lancer (and risk losing it to djem so attacks). This was another game where the lancer really didn’t do enough to earn a win, and the IG-86 droids got killed before doing almost anything, but the best of the rest was just good enough to hang in there and work towards victory.

By then it was like 11:00 at night and we had a long drive, so Bronson hooked us up with some pizza and we took off. Thanks a lot to the Jamestown players for having us over and please come on down to Atlanta if you have the chance. We don’t have any backyard wrestling videos to share, but we’ll figure out something.

Props:Bronson and all the Jamestown guys for a great event and a fun day.Nathan for finding the store.Sidious for killing way more stuff than he probably should throughout the tournament.Backyard wrestling videos for being hilarious.Star Wars ROTJ Rifftrax for keeping us awake on the drive back.Prize support for fast play and lopsided wins, anti-prize support for being a chump or emitting foul odors. This idea will be copied.Ricky for knocking Daniel out of the playoffs so we can make fun of him some more. And for loaning me the drones.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum